Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
TL;DR
- The US government has been trying to ban TikTok for years over concerns of Chinese influence.
- A ban was finally passed into law last year, requiring ByteDance to sell TikTok by January 19, 2025.
- The Supreme Court has now heard TikTok’s arguments against the ban, but it seems unlikely to strike down the law.
In just over a week, one of Most Popular Apps The world has never seen faces cut off from a large portion of its user base TikTok banned in America Threatened to take effect on January 19. Considering the app’s widespread appeal, we wouldn’t blame you for feeling like this ban is never going to happen — after all, politicians are threatening to kick TikTok out of US app stores over concerns of China’s involvement. It’s been over four years now, and so far the app is as available as ever. With that deadline now approaching, it looks like TikTok is really in trouble.
Efforts to ban TikTok actually intensified last spring, as US politicians in the House of Representatives passed a bill that would allow TikTok’s parent company ByteDance to either sell the app to another company or face a ban in the US. There was a need to face. While that bill fell in the Senate, a second attempt succeeded and became law in late April. That law defined the deadline that is now set to expire, giving ByteDance until January 19 to comply.
With a sale looking unlikely, ByteDance’s best and last chance may lie with the Supreme Court, and earlier this week the company’s lawyers presented their case to the justices. According to the report of bloombergHowever, it appears that the court has not responded very favorably to ByteDance’s arguments.
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Company lawyers told the court that China’s influence is not a meaningful factor in how TikTok operates, and the ban would effectively limit the free speech rights of Americans. While questions raised by some judges during the hearings revealed varying degrees of sympathy, the overall atmosphere has been described as largely negative, and Bloomberg’s The analysis has reduced TikTok’s chances of avoiding a ban from 30% to 20%.
In theory, the app could still be usable in a limited way after the ban, but US companies would be prohibited from supporting TikTok, including hosting it in the App Store. At the moment, any kind of limited existence also seems unlikely, however, as lawyers for the company have indicated that TikTok will “go dark” if the ban is implemented.
That said, this story is still far from over, and even if the court doesn’t strike down the ban outright, ByteDance could enjoy a stay that would allow TikTok to temporarily continue operating while Further measures will be considered. One way or another, we’ll know what’s going on in a few days.
